Tag Archives: ideal career

Find your ideal career for 2015

Finding Your Ideal Career for 2015: 5 Things you Shouldn’t Do

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Find your Ideal Career: don’t make a mistake!

You’re fed up with the status quo of your career! You are finally ready to find a new career. Not just a new job, but a new career. A brand spanking new, love-my-job career! Your ideal career for 2015.

But don’t make the mistakes many people do every year searching for their perfect career.

Here’s the top 5 things you shouldn’t do when seeking your ideal career.  Some maybe obvious, but others might surprise you.

5 things you shouldn't do when looking for your new career

Don’t make these mistakes when looking for your ideal career in 2015

  1. Don’t fish around looking through job ads trying to find your career. Job titles are not careers. They are company labels for a salary slots. Moreover, they just might make you more confused about what you like because you may find so many. You could become more discouraged because none of them sound appealing at all. Searching for a career like this is a waste of your time!
  1. Don’t waste your time taking free career tests. They are scams to hook you into buying their product or getting your email. And they cannot produce valid, reliable, or accurate results because they haven’t been researched and tested.
  1. Don’t employ the services of a touchy-feely, dreams-based counselor who uses fun, free form exercises. A career expert who can’t nail down your strengths, talents, abilities, values, and interest with research-based testing in within a month is only testing your patience. You need ideas or clues to launch your imagination in the right direction and pique your interest in areas your mind hasn’t yet found. Don’t waste your time fishing for the right pond of careers. Get the clues as to which pond your career lies in.
  2. Oh, and don’t just rely on career tests! Even the best tests have great clues but don’t have everything. Sadly, most people who just take career tests (1) Can’t see past their former expectations and re-frame their understanding of themselves and success. (2) Not only that, but they can’t possibly see a path to that career from where they are or (3) see how they can make the money they need and want. Career testing without the expert advice of a seasoned career counselor sets you up for disappointment.
  3. Don’t just take one type of career test. You  might find a test that gives you a good lead on your perfect career in this new year. But can you pick out your perfect career from a list? Or which job utilizes the abilities in you that scream for expression? Always remember: one type of career test only gives one perspective.

And, for the young adults. . .

  1. Don’t rely on an interest test if you are a young adult. I used to say that the Strong test was all you needed. But the information and recreational overload available to us today, in addition to increased authoritarian structures, suck the creativity out of young people. They no longer really know what they like – they haven’t had or taken the time to find out. Maybe you do understand yourself and your interests. Or maybe you, like many young adults, have allowed pitiful engagements instead of personal passions determine your interests. To be safe, you need more than an interest test to point the way.

Next, “What 3 Things to Do to Find your Ideal Career . . . With Clarity and Certainty”

Career Personality and Career Personality Tests: part 5

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Part 5: Career Personality Test Types – The Right Career Test for You

All career personality tests fall into three categories: occupation generating, occupation matching, and neither occupation generating nor matching. Each type of career personality test has unique features and addresses different career needs. This blog should help you find the right career test for your situation.

Occupation Generating Career Tests

Take a paper test to generate

Some career personality tests are paper tests that generate jobs lists

These are inexpensive, simple to use, and quick tests. They are most appropriate for persons wanting many career options, needing an inexpensive test, wanting a paper test (as opposed to online), and for lower level jobs in corporations, trades, or front-line service. Among the most common and best on the market are: COPS system tests and SDS tests.

Occupation Matching Career Tests

Next, occupation matching tests are meant to align personality traits and jobs that require those traits for success and satisfaction. That means that after taking this test, your personality traits will be matched with a career that will most likely result in your success and happiness. These are, therefore, especially useful for persons seeking to discover their first career, a new career, a career direction, an ideal career, getting clues to define a career niche, and changing careers because of career dissatisfaction. The best tests of this kind include Strong Interest Inventory and Myers Briggs Type Test.

Non-occupation Generating or Matching Career Tests

Lastly, non-generating or matching tests do not produce a list or a set of occupations matching your personality. Instead, they give descriptions of how the test-taker would likely behave on the job.  For example, the FIRO-B test describes how one relates to others on the job such as a boss, co-workers, teams, and colleagues. Another such test, the DISC test, measures one’s natural and adapted ways of communicating, contributing, leading, interacting, and performing at work. These tests, therefore, are usually used for job performance improvements, employment screening, and career development.

The test you choose depends on your life context. What is your current career? Do you know your purpose (career change, satisfaction improvement, etc.)? What is your income or desired income? Choosing the right career test might be tricky. Fill out the form below to ask The Career Profiler for help if you need it.

 

Success Story: Strategic Career Alliances

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Career Success Story #1

This is a story from a former client who came to me for help. She was “just working” without thinking about her potential future in the company. Making career alliances can sound intimidating and cutthroat, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s just one example of many ways I can help you improve your performance, find the perfect job, change to a new career, or excel in your company!

“I expected to be laid off as a result of restructuring in my department. Even though I had over 20 years at this Fortune 100 company, I had lost some political advantages. I didn’t think through creating career alliances with executives or other employers. I called TheCareerProfiler for resume help. But she said a resume wasn’t the most important thing to be thinking about. In order to achieve career success and security again, I needed to learn new career skills.

As the layoffs started, I worked on making my career future secure and successful within this new culture. I aligned myself with politically powerful and savvy executives who protected my job and positioned me to gain an ideal position within the company. I learned two critical career secrets: Make strategic career alliances and go for what your truly want in your career… go for your ideal career.” –Joanne C.

Are you done with waiting for the “inevitable?” Then start working towards smart career decisions, securing your job, improving your skills, and making strategic alliances! Don’t know where to start? Get in touch with The Career Profiler today.